A young boy peeks through the border wall Monday in the Anapra neighborhood of Juárez as officials with the Border Network for Human Rights and the New Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival prepare for a news conference denouncing the wall and the mistreatment of marginalized people.(Photo11: MARK LAMBIE/EL PASO TIMES)Buy Photo

On Monday, Barber, along with local and national civil rights activists, visited the border fence in Sunland Park, where they chanted "tear down this wall" and called for unity of the American people regardless of their skin color or background.

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The Rev. William Barber II, co-chair of the New Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, prays with Virginia Santana on Monday through the border wall at Sunland Park and the Anapra neighborhood of Juárez after a joint news conference with the Border Network for Human Rights. The campaign seeks to unite all people to return society to the decent treatment of one another and end racism. MARK LAMBIE/EL PASO TIMES

A young boy peeks through the border fence in the Anapra neighborhood of Juarez as officials with the Border Network for Human Rights and the Poor People’s Campaign prepare for a press conference denouncing the wall and the mistreatment of marginalized people. MARK LAMBIE / EL PASO TIMES

Teresa Nevarez, Deputy Director of the Border Network for Human Rights, stands letters against the border wall in Anapra as they prepare for a press conference with the Poor People’s Campaign Monday. MARK LAMBIE / EL PASO TIMES

Johnny Desert Bear shows children on the Juarez side of the border wall his native ceremonial items during a press conference denouncing the wall by BNHR Monday near Anapra. MARK LAMBIE / EL PASO TIMES

Virginia Santana, left, reunites with Maria de Santiago across the border wall during a Border Network for Human Rights press conference Monday at across from the Anapra neighborhood of Juarez. MARK LAMBIE / EL PASO TIMES

Virginia Santana, left, reunites with Maria de Santiago across the border wall during a Border Network for Human Rights press conference Monday at across from the Anapra neighborhood of Juarez. MARK LAMBIE / EL PASO TIMES

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“I just looked through that wall and I didn’t see criminals and rapists. I saw children,” Barber said after greeting a group of Mexican children through the bars of the 18-foot-tall steel fence.

Barber was referring to President Donald Trump’s comments during his political campaign last year that described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals.

“What is criminal and what is a form of rape is this wall. This wall is criminal in the way in which it ... attempts to separate humanity, the way in which it looks like a cage, like we are trying to cage some people and keep them from others. It’s criminal because it’s a symbol of racism and white supremacism and white nationalism,” he added.

Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, said the goal of the campaign is to show that communities of color can come together and fight racism, xenophobia, poverty and the displacement of marginalized people in the United States.

"One example of the racism and criminalization of our communities is the border wall … the symbol of the America that we don’t want to be," he said.

Among the activists who participated in Monday's event was Bishop Jose Raul Vera Lopez of Saltillo, Mexico, who is famous for defending indigenous rights and denouncing abuses against migrants in Chiapas.

Vera Lopez said that as a Mexican, he sees the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico as a symbol of the failure of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He said the agreement promised to help the poor in Mexico. However, there has not been progress and while the poor are still poor, the rich got richer, he said.

During his visit to Austin on Friday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised the Trump administration’s new immigration principles and argue that Trump's proposed wall would send a message to people hoping to enter the United States to “wait your turn” and follow the appropriate legal avenues to entry.

“The president is determined, first and finally, to build a wall at the border,” he said. “This will make it harder for illegal aliens to enter the country. But, more importantly, the wall will send a message to the world that we enforce our laws. It sends a message that, finally, we mean it.”

The Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the civil rights campaign, said that while Sessions talked about the criminality and illegality of people on the other side of the wall, Americans must question the values at the heart of the nation.

"For anyone who claims to be a Christian, let us remember that we follow a savior who was poor, undocumented, the child of a teenage mother who was living under foreign domination, who is considered illegal and killed by the state for trying to create a movement to unite people, and to make life better for everyone," she said.